Finally, after what felt like ninety days, Maude had gotten up and said goodbye to us. Apparently she was headed to a flower arranging class and couldn’t be late. She also told us that the flower arranging class was the bachelorette party for her friend who was getting married for the fifth time, at the age of eighty-five, and that she was only going because there was going to be good wine there.
I’d been dreading the moment we were alone, but as soon as the door shut, Jarrod picked up his phone and said we should order Chinese food. Not one to pass down Chinese ever, I’d agreed, and when normal cable looked boring as hell, we’d decided to go upstairs and watch the last episode of The Witcher in my room while we ate the food. I quickly realized that one didn’t just watch one episode of the series and that to truly enjoy it, you had to watch all of it all over again – so we did.
That had started a discussion on the game versus the series, and which was better. I was torn, like actually torn on this one. I liked the series, the game was awesome, the Geralt character in both was hot as hell… I couldn’t make up my mind.
During all of this, I’d noticed how aware of my eccentricities he was. He was overly careful not to drop food on the bed, he didn’t move stuff around, if he wanted to see something he asked and then made sure I was ok with how he’d put it back, then as soon as we were done eating he took the garbage and leftovers downstairs and put it all away… it might not sound like a lot, but not many people were like that. Because of that, when he came back up, I’d told him about how things had been out of place in my room and what had happened to my pictures, and he’d tried to think back over the day everyone was here. The only ones who were actually in my stuff were the twins, and he didn’t think they’d do that because they were moving stuff to organize it properly, not to mess it around.
Not having answers bothered me, but I wouldn’t have put it past my brothers to move shit while they were round here, so I’d just have to cause them pain when I saw them again.
After that, we’d settled down and had watched a movie called Rampage which I was now putting in the top five of my favorite movies ever. I’d started off resting back against some pillows, but soon enough Jarrod had pulled me down so that my head was on his chest and had played with my hair through it. I totally got what Maude meant about it being her happy place!
I hadn’t realized how stiffly I’d been holding myself, though, until he muttered, “Relax, baby. I’m not gonna jump you.”
That declaration made me somewhat disappointed as well as relieved, but it also made me focus on relaxing my muscles. Then I got a wild hair – something that I wasn’t known for – and jumped on him and kissed him, a clean pair of Mario panties and all. There was only so much Jarrod chest on my face I could take, and it really was the only way to get rid of the tension… that was the excuse for doing it at that moment, at least.
Then we settled back into our previous positions, rewound the movie, and I fell asleep on his chest watching it.
Yes, I’d jumped Jarrod, literally. The poor guy was innocently watching an albino gorilla who could speak sign language and give the birdie to Dwayne Johnson (he’d also mutated along with a crocodile and wolf who’d killed the hot guy from Magic Mike – sad times) and I’d launched myself on top of him.
I wanted to die of embarrassment!
Figuring that maybe giving my bladder what it wanted and then going on the lam (or maybe my bladder could hold out while I went on the lam? Not far, just three hundred miles or so) was the best way to escape, I slowly slipped away from him, freezing and watching him when he shifted slightly. When he didn’t move again, I let out a breath and looked down, ready to continue on my way, and came face to face with a bulge under the blanket.
A bulge at his crotch under the blanket.
A blanket bulge.
A Jarrod penis blanket bulge.
And my head was right over the penis blanket bulge. Now, I’m not gonna lie, I’d obviously tried to picture it. Who in their right mind wouldn’t have? It was Jarrod freaking Kline’s penis. Any woman who even glanced at him probably thought about it and it was right under my face, under my blanket, in my bed.
Fuh. Ka. Me.
Glancing quickly up at him again to make sure he wasn’t awake, I looked back down at it and studied it. If all of that was him, then holy shit. But, being rational here, the likelihood was that some of it could be his zipper sitting weirdly (disappointing), as well as the way his jeans had gathered while he was sleeping (doubly disappointing), and both of those could also have made the blanket lie slightly weird (totally disappointing). In an ideal world, it was all Jarrod, though, but I had to be slightly rational.
A deep chuckle snapped me out of my blanket bulge musings, and if I thought I was embarrassed before, it had nothing on how I felt right then.
“Babe,” he rasped in a deep, sleepy voice. “It’s not going to bite you.”
“How do I know you didn’t get any of the genetic stuff like George did in Rampage?”
This apparently was a hilarious concern to have, but I thought I had a point. “I don’t think it’s going to go around attacking people, Katy.”
“But how do you know?”
His large hand landed on my shoulder and stroked the skin next to the strap of my tank top. “Because he’s never done it before.”
“How can you be sure?” I pressed. When all he did was laugh, I asked, “Just out of curiosity, how much of that blanket bulge is you?” This time when I looked up at him, he had a huge grin on his face, but all he did was raise an eyebrow at me. “Damn jeans, zippers, and blankets,” I muttered, finally pulling back and moving to do what I’d needed to do for at least thirty minutes now.
It wasn’t until I got to the door that he called, “Hey, Katy, can you pass me my jeans from the chair, please?”
Acting automatically, I picked them up and chucked them to him, and decided that I’d be more comfortable peeing in the spare bathroom than the one attached to my bedroom. I wasn’t sure exactly how thick the walls were between the rooms, but I didn’t want to risk him hearing me tinkle. That was just a bit too much out of my comfort zone, especially after I’d questioned his penis.
It wasn’t until I sat down that it hit me. His jeans had been on the chair in my room… He didn’t have his jeans on… That wasn’t a zipper and jean bulge at all…
Staring at the wall, I felt a small shiver of something work its way over me. I’ll call it something, because it definitely wasn’t a bad shiver at all.
“No wonder he looked so cocky!”
Jarrod
Spending time with Katie wasn’t a hardship at all, far from it. She was quiet, but what she had to say was usually funny, even if she didn’t intend for it to be. I also knew that with what was building between us, I needed to guide her slowly and carefully. I’d given it some thought the night I’d asked her out in front of her parents, and I didn’t think she was totally innocent, but I also knew confidence was a problem for her and so was shyness.
Katy was shy in a strange way. Normally, I’d think of someone blushing or hiding their face, but with her she showed it in different ways. She tended to withdraw and wait rather than act, and she was just… well, Katy. Sweet, beautiful, just like the fairy princess her parents had said she’d been born like.
So, I was going to have to guide her through this, which meant that I had to take my time – even if she jumped on me like she had last night. That along with her having the guts to question me about my dick this morning gave me hope that she was feeling the same things I was about what was happening between us – hope and fucking happiness like I couldn’t remember ever feeling before.
One step at a time.
I was also finally taking her out on our first date today, which I was getting ready for. I’d waited until she was in the bathroom to yell it to her, and then I’d run downstairs to head back to mine to shower. It wasn’t going to be anything huge, but it was going to be fun…
*
* *
“I can’t believe you brought me here on our first date,” she gasped as she took in the displays around us. “It’s… I…”
Stopping, I gently turned her to face me. “You don’t like it?”
“Like it? It’s the craziest first date ever,” she said, still sounding shocked.
This time my voice was disappointed when I asked, “So you don’t like it?”
“I love it. It’s the best date in the history of dates,” she told me in a tone that implied that I was the crazy one.
Turning her back around to face the room filled with gaming displays and people walking around in character costumes, I whispered in her ear, “Live it up, baby. Where do you want to go first?”
When I’d bought the tickets on Friday, I’d had second thoughts just as the ‘Congratulations’ message came up that confirmed my successful purchase. In fact, I’d been lucky as hell to even get the tickets this late and it was purely down to the fact that the gaming convention had been planned six weeks previously, but because of an influx of really bad weather and a norovirus outbreak, it had been canceled. The tickets I’d had to purchase in the end were all access, all day, VIP ones which had cost a fortune, but I’d done a ton of overtime recently so it wasn’t impossible. Seeing her face now, though, I’d pay double what I had just to see that excitement again.
Before we could take the first step forward, she spun around, pulled my face down to hers and kissed me soundly. For a minute I forgot we were surrounded by people in cosplay outfits and gaming paraphernalia, and I also forgot my one step at a time mantra…
At least until I felt someone stop beside us and growl, “Fuck!”
Reluctantly, I lifted my mouth away from Katy’s, and we both looked to the side to see a dude dressed up as Geralt of Rivia, aka the dude from The Witcher. Of course it was, it wouldn’t possibly be anyone else, would it?
“Oh my god,” Katy whispered, staring at him. “You even sound just like him.”
The guy focused his amber eyes on her, growled and then stomped away before she could say anything else.
Shaking it off, I looked down to see her eyes sparkling up at me. “I just growled at by Geralt of Rivia. Best. Date. Ever!” she told me, leaning into me on the last word.
And there began the weirdest date of my life – and possibly the most expensive – but it was also the best date I’d ever been on, too. And not just because she was so excited, but because she was Katy.
Katy
Eight hours later…
Going out on a date with a tall guy was one of the bestest things ever. Three times we’d gone into a theater to see different actors/creators speak, and each time I’d had the problem I’d encountered my whole life – height. For some reason, even with heels on, the world was filled with gargantuan freaks of nature. Because the venue for the con didn’t have fixed seats in the rooms, it was standing only which freaking sucked.
Then in came Jarrod and his height. Without even asking – although you couldn’t not see me standing on tiptoe to try to see over the shoulder of the big ape in front of me (literally because he was wearing a gorilla suit) – he’d bent down, put his head between my legs (yes, it was as exciting as it sounds until I realized what he was actually doing), and had lifted up with me on his shoulders.
Fan. Fa. King. Tastic! And that was a new one that I was keeping all to myself. My brothers could get in shit for swearing because I was keeping it.
What made it even better – although it confused me how anything could be better than his head between my thighs, especially seeing as how a lot of it connected to my vagina – was that the guy on the stage saw me and started laughing, then called me up to meet him at the end.
When we’d gone to the second one, Jarrod had just done it again without me even having to go onto my tiptoes for a second, and the guy was at that event, too. He’d waved at me and yelled, “Hey, Katy!”
For the third one, I’d been ready and waiting, and we’d ended up having coffee with all the actors and creators after it was over.
And, and, and, I was now the proud owner of five bags of merchandise and signed swag that had been given to me by those actors and creators. Add all of this onto me having Jarrod’s head between my legs and against my vagina three times in one day, and it was the best moment of my life.
The only time I was even mildly embarrassed was when a guy dressed up as Mario had come up to us (big costume head and all) and had held his thumb up to me. Of course the big shit head had to get a photo of the three of us (and Mario’s thumb) together and had then texted it to Maude. She was kind enough to send a voicemail back of her cackling with laughter, which ended with her threatening to shove the roses up someone’s ass if they touched her arrangement again. Jarrod looked alarmed by that and had asked if he should send his brothers over, but she played Bridge on the first Sunday of the month, and those old biddies were hella aggressive when they were losing.
We were now on our way home and I had a warm feeling in my stomach about how the day had gone.
“We should take Elodie next year,” Jarrod mused as he overtook someone. “We could dress her up as baby Groot.”
The warm feeling I’d been nursing turned into a blazing inferno. “Really?”
Taking his eyes off the road for a second, he looked over at me and grinned when he saw how happy that idea made me. “Yeah. We’ll make it a weekend with her and get the Friday to Sunday tickets.”
This made the inferno hotter than the sun. First off, he liked my niece enough to take her to something like that, and for the whole weekend. Second, he was thinking of ways to include her into things. Third, he thought we’d still be whatever we were in a year. Or wait, was he thinking that we could split up and survive it as friends? That was a sucky prospect.
“She loves Groot. I got her this baby one that dances to that Jackson 5 song, I Want You Back. I swear whenever it turns on, she does her best to moonwalk.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he chuckled, reaching over for my hand. “Hey, I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Now that I know where your names came from, how did Elodie get her name?”
Now this was a Debbie downer topic. “When she was born, Effie left it until the last second almost to get to hospital. When Uncle Leo got the call, the staff said she’d practically crawled in, pushed her out, and left. They’d only just gotten her situated in a bed and had taken Elodie to have some tests done seeing as how Effie was high as a kite.”
His hand tightened on my fingers, and then it felt like he forced himself to relax. “Was she born addicted?”
“No,” I blew out a breath. “Being the caring mother that she was, Effie had stuck to pot once she knew she was pregnant. That said, we’re not talking about a joint here and there, we’re talking constant. Elodie was only just under five pounds when she was born, slightly premature, and it took them six weeks to let Leo take her home because she had some ups and downs because of it.”
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Poor precious girl.”
“Anyway, Leo couldn’t decide what to name her, but he knew he wanted to do something similar to Mom and Dad because he was torn between his dead wife’s name, Ellen, and her mother’s name, Melodie – with an I and E. He’d been thinking Mellen until I visited her and told him he couldn’t call the poor baby something that sounded like melon. I mean, what’s up with that?”
“People call their kids apple,” he pointed out. “What about Mellencamp? He’s a legend, so you could have given him the credit.”
With my head still pressed against the headrest, I turned to look at him. “Does she look like a Mellen to you?”
He took all of five seconds to think it over and answer. “Point taken.”
Damn right, doggy. “I suggested Elodie, and he loved it, so that’s what we named her.”
“What happened to Effie during all of this? Were CPS involved?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, turnin
g now to look out of the window at the dark around us. “It was a mess, but Leo’s a great guy and CPS prefer to keep kids with their families, so after some red tape and cavity searches, they said ok. Then he had to track Effie down to get her to sign over custody to him which sucked.”
“Why did it suck?”
Doing my best not to cry, I whispered, “Because by the time he found her, she was so high, she’d forgotten she’d even had a baby.”
There was a tense silence, and then he growled, “What the fuck?”
Exactly. She was my flesh and blood, but I couldn’t get my head around it a year later.
“Leo struggled with that the most I think.”
Shaking his head, he asked, “So, what’s with the purple teddy bear?”
This question hit on another sore point for me. “Three months ago when she did one of her fly by visits, she made a huge deal out of the teddy bear. At first Leo wasn’t sure about giving it to her because of the quality and was worried that one of the eyes would fall off and she’d choke on it, but by the time Effie left, Elodie wouldn’t sleep without it. He took it to a friend of his who was one of those rare doll fixer guys to check the eyes and he did something that made them uber safe.”
“Uber safe?” he snickered, giving my hand a quick squeeze. “What kind of safe is that?”
What kind of question was that? “Uh, only one step down from as safe as Fort Knox.”
Fortunately, we were at a red light when I said this because he threw his head back and burst out laughing. “Fort Knox is secure, baby.”
“Exactly. Fort Knox is a big safe that’s uber secure, so I’m right.”
This answer got him laughing again, but this time he had to tame it down slightly because the lights had just changed back to green so we were moving away from them. “I don’t mean to offend you when I say this, but it’s…” he stopped and searched for a word, but I had one to hand.
Talk Flirty To Me: Cheap Thrills Series Book 4 Page 13